


Bonfire Hearts

by Leviafan



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, PWP without Porn, Purple Prose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-08
Updated: 2017-07-08
Packaged: 2018-11-19 23:53:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11324337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leviafan/pseuds/Leviafan
Summary: The gesture is innocent, the contact without intention, yet instantly it kindles something. A mutual flame. Their eyes meet. Tongue passes over the lips of one; the other flushes but does not look away. This is still so new, but both recognize the sparks. The only question— how to harness them?





	Bonfire Hearts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Firestorm717](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Firestorm717/gifts).



He says ‘I want you’ not in words but in the way he touches. That he does so at all, that already says so much. This is a man who previously reached out not in need or even want, but to capture, to snare, to collar. He still does. It’s in his blood as much as the fortune-telling and, yes, the commission of crime. Even he barely remembers what, and of course it does not matter. Duly convicted, he must serve his sentence— that is how he sees his father from the beginning. Or is it? Intervening years have lapped at his memories, carrying them away grain by grain. And then, he would like to think so.

Now he is willing to compromise, to do something he thought was not in his nature. Gentleness, care. These are foreign to him. Not even because he desires it thus, but because it has always been. Change does not come quickly to the glacier, nor to him, who is ice, capable of melting but resistant.

The man he touches, though he craves each sliver, is no more acclimated. He is instead programmed for blows after half a lifetime of them. It has taken time and a wrenching realization, no less transformational on either side, to reach this point.

Now their fingers need only brush and it’s like electricity. Sometimes it’s bright, quick, gentle fire sending the hairs along their arms to stand at attention. A reminder of each other’s presence. When combined with a glance, of each other’s affection. And sometimes the jolt strikes much deeper, working its way deep into their flesh, drawing from a well half-forgotten over the course of their lives. They have yet to sound the depth of it.

Today it’s the latter. The gesture is innocent, the contact without intention, yet instantly it kindles something. A mutual flame. Their eyes meet. Tongue passes over the lips of one; the other flushes but does not look away. This is still so new, but both recognize the sparks. The only question— how to harness them?

First lips collide. That part is if not easy then almost natural. A smattering of kisses doesn’t make them experts, but there is more confidence here than in what will— what must follow. The urgency scorching their veins from inside, the heating of skin at every contact, tenderness given way to a sweet desperation. These are signs they cannot ignore. Another day perhaps, but today saints are human, the only martyrdom a surrendering to desire. For him it proves what the other in the dogmatic strength of his devotion seems to deny: that he is only a man.

One pulls the other close, a contrast to years before. Hands tremble at waist, some words of encouragement are pressed in between kisses to his neck. When with a tone of pleading comes his name, that he’d once feared to hear, he grants a mercy that likewise would be shunned before. Awkward fumbling of the unpracticed, but successful. He stares, as amazed as if this were the first time, cheeks heating.

He is watched with calculated dispassion. Nearly a lie, though he will never suggest it. Cruel to point out the obvious. A man’s flesh finds it hard to lie.

“Like what you see?”

The words intensify his blush. Their tone, amused growl, facilitates other redistributions of blood. An impossible cycle, broken when he’s backed up against the bed. Trapped, the prey at the end of the chase. One shove and he’s spread there, startled but the only look in his eyes an invitation. It’s accepted. His shirt is pushed up with no ceremony and no sign of patience. Lips are brushed against torso, which retreats in surprise before resigning itself to the touch.

Part of this is in anticipation. He cards fingers deep into dark hair, as far as the glow of silver at his temples— drawn there. Ensconced in a jungle of strands, he tightens his grip. Thumbs are digging into his hips while fingers massage the flesh beyond without mercy. The sweet violence drags from him a sound he’s only learned to make in the past few years. A primal sound, made with the same throat that once cried and snarled and eventually fell silent in the face of an uncaring deity.

The same thought seeps through their connection, but with a different reception. For all his animalistic dominance he wants this reversal of roles, to be subversively brought to his knees by the ‘authority’ of the bagnard. He knows he cannot ask this of the man he loves; it would cut too close to the quick of memories still raw.

It’s too late. The thought is there; Jean Valjean senses it and when asked, Javert cannot deny. The expression he receives is a just punishment, he thinks. Horrified, profoundly sad— not pitying, but he feels the burden of failure put in place by this desire, which must be as good as expectation in his mind. His need to please Javert sometimes strikes fear in his heart, a feat in itself.

Fiercely he draws the man toward him, the near roughness of the action mitigated by the other’s strength. He could stop this at any time. (Whether he would is left unconsidered.) Dark whiskers grate against his bare torso, then the softness of lips for comparison.

“Never mind.” Repeated with greater force in the face of protest before it can be offered. “Never mind.”

Their previous thrill returns quickly, coaxed out by touch and by sound. As unconscious compromise Valjean boldens his approach. Gentle but insistent, he ignores the daws’ cries of ‘Pride! Hubris! Selfishness!’ in favor of guiding the head held in his hands. True force is not necessary— the excess is for Javert’s benefit. From the noises that make it past the natural barrier of hot skin, it’s apparent that he has no small appreciation.

In the hush that follows the peak, manic and serene, Javert may hear a soft murmur— so soft he cannot be sure: “Someday. Not today, but someday. I promise.” This stirs him already in anticipation, for he has learned to trust this man’s word, implicitly and without doubt.

Valjean has learned too: a slip requires consequence, so they lay there together, their only contact his fingers playing through the indulgence of long locks. He is denying himself along with Javert— but of course he martyrs himself in silence.

**Author's Note:**

> The other idea that came to me was too ambitious for a pinch hit— keep an eye out if this was a disappointment, as it's in the works. Also I'd like to apologize for the vagueness of the "porn" but it seemed to fit the style of the rest.


End file.
